


One Tomorrow at a Time

by Requiem



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Amnesia, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Infected Leon S. Kennedy, M/M, Movie: Resident Evil: Vendetta, POV Alternating, Post-Resident Evil: Vendetta, does it still count if the reason you can't remember is because you've been turned into a monster, non-verbal communication
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29040924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Requiem/pseuds/Requiem
Summary: During the fight with Arias, Leon gets infected and turns into a B.O.W. Chris is not giving up on him that easily.
Relationships: Leon S. Kennedy/Chris Redfield
Comments: 16
Kudos: 111





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a WIP so I'm not sure how long it's going to be (probably long-ish) or how long it'll be between updates (hopefully not long-ish). Tags will be added as new chapters are posted.

Chris was setting down a tank of the vaccine next to Rebecca when he heard a blood-curdling scream from the other side of the balcony that was all too human to be Arias. Instinct called him over to help Leon, but the timer ticking down on his watch told him that if he didn't get Rebecca this vaccine now, he could end up losing both of them. So it was with shaking fingers that he attached the tubing to the tank and uncoiled it, careful not to rush and cause any kinks or knots even though the agonized screams in the background were calling him over.

Once he finally got the mask on Rebecca and started the flow of the vaccine, Chris placed her hand over the mask, hoping that she wouldn't move too much and gravity would be able to hold the mask in place. He scooped up his Beretta from where it'd been kicked aside during his fight with Arias, reloaded a fresh magazine, and ran to Leon's aid.

Except…he couldn’t see Leon anywhere. There was Arias, if that mutated monstrosity could still be called Arias, and there was…something on top of him, hissing, snarling, and scratching at his face as he batted ineffectually at it.

"What the…" Where the hell had that second B.O.W. come from? And where the hell was Leon?

Chris didn't have much time to think about the answer to those questions because the second B.O.W. stabbed the glowing red mass on Arias' chest with the end of its tail, and Arias staggered back with a roar. Seeing his chance, Chris fired several rounds into the same spot while the B.O.W. kept up its assault on Arias' head, wriggling out of his grasp every time he tried to pry it off. It eventually managed to sink its claws into Arias' eyes, judging by the way Arias reared his head and blindly stumbled back a few steps.

Chris's Beretta clicked empty and he tossed it to the side; he didn't have any spare magazines left for it anyway. What he did have was a grenade for the M203 on his rifle, which was resting next to the elevator where he'd left it. By the time he had it loaded and raised to his shoulder, Arias and the B.O.W. were at the edge of the balcony, right in front of the railing. Perfect.

The grenade hit Arias square in the glowing part of his chest, and he fell backwards through the railing with a scream as flames engulfed his body. The other B.O.W. was thrown into the air, and landed somewhere to the side. The fall seemed to have shaken it since it was having a hard time getting up, so Chris ran to the edge of the balcony first to check that Arias was well and truly gone this time. It was a long way down, but he couldn't see anything that looked like a body, only a messy puddle of red splattered across the pavement. There would be no coming back from that.

The sound of movement behind him had him whirling around, rifle at the ready even though he had no ammo left for it. In a pinch, he had the bayonet, but if he could get the B.O.W. to charge him, maybe he could trick it into jumping off the balcony.

Then there was a rush of wind that ruffled the hair on the back of his head, and the reassuring chop of the helicopter's blades as D.C. brought the rear of it level with the balcony. Nadia, standing in the open doorway, had her rifle up and ready to fire at the B.O.W. Chris moved aside to give her a clear shot, and in doing so, stepped on something…soft. Clothes? Not just any clothes either—Chris recognized the shredded sleeve of what had once been Leon's jacket. But if Leon's clothes were here…

Chris snapped his head up. Besides him and Rebecca, the only other thing on the roof was the B.O.W., which was currently staring at the chopper with its head cocked to one side instead of trying to attack it or Chris. A thought occurred to him.

"Wait!" he yelled at Nadia, waving his arms to get her attention.

She jerked her rifle up and her shot went wide, but it still managed to hit the B.O.W. in its upper arm, and it let out a yelp before scampering off to the other side of the skylight. To where Rebecca was.

Nadia was yelling something at Chris, but he wasn't listening as he sprinted after the B.O.W., praying that he hadn't been wrong about its intentions. When he skidded to a stop around the corner, Rebecca was right where he'd left her, unharmed, and the B.O.W. was hunkered down between the office and the skylight, trying to make itself as small as possible: the long appendages that protruded from its back like insect legs were tucked against its body, and its long spiked tail was curled around its legs in a way that was almost endearing.

"Leon?" Chris said hesitantly. "Is that you?"

Bright blue eyes stared back at him. Chris couldn't tell if there was recognition in them, but they definitely weren't the eyes of a monster hellbent on devouring every living thing in its path.

"Chris?" Rebecca called in a weak voice.

The B.O.W.'s eyes flicked to her, then back to Chris. It didn't move, but Chris kept a close watch on it as he returned to Rebecca's side.

"How are you feeling?" he asked. Her breath was still coming in shallow gasps, but the dark veins were gone from her face and limbs.

"I'll be alright. Just need to—" Rebecca followed Chris's gaze. "What…is that?"

"This is going to sound crazy, but I think it's Leon." Chris could have sworn the B.O.W.'s gaze got a little sharper upon hearing Leon's name.

"H-how?" At least Rebecca didn't think he'd completely lost it, but she probably wasn't too clear-headed either.

"I have no idea."

The three of them remained unmoving as the chopper landed on the helipad above and Nadia came down to join them.

"It's okay," Chris said, holding out a hand to stop her from getting too close. "You take Rebecca and start loading up the vaccine; the tanks are through there. I'll handle this." _This_ being the B.O.W. that Nadia looked like she was itching to shoot. If Chris had a working sidearm, he was sure he'd have to fight the urge himself when he had seventeen years of experience to tell him these things were not his friends. Until now, maybe.

"Take this, at least." Nadia held out her pistol.

Chris mulled it over for a second before accepting the gun and holstering it. He didn't want to seem like a threat, but it would be reckless not to have a backup plan if things went south.

He waited until Nadia and Rebecca were gone before approaching the B.O.W. again, crouching down just out of arm's reach with one hand positioned so he could quickly draw the pistol if needed.

"Leon, if you're in there, give me some kind of sign," he said in a low voice.

The B.O.W. stared at him for a long moment before slowly uncurling, first straightening its tail—being very careful not to hit Chris with it—then pulling its extra arms—legs?—flat against its back.

"That's it," Chris said soothingly. "Easy does it."

The B.O.W. put forward its uninjured arm—scaly and spiked and ending in fingers that were more like claws, but still discernibly once human—and slowly shifted its weight forward. It seemed to be quadrupedal, keeping that arm on the ground and limping a little as it protectively held the other to its side. Chris shuffled back, no longer in a crouch but still stooped over to present himself as non-threateningly as he could, and the B.O.W. cautiously followed him out of the alcove. It balked at going into the office, though.

"Come on," Chris urged, making small motions with his hand. The only way to get up to the helipad was from the inside. "Leon," he called, because the B.O.W. had seemed to respond to it before. "We've gotta get you out of here if you want to get this fixed."

The B.O.W. made deliberate eye contact with Chris, banishing all doubt that it, somehow, was Leon.

"You remember Rebecca, right?" Chris kept talking, hoping that either his words or the sound of his voice would get through to Leon. "She's the best we've got when it comes to figuring out how these viruses work; she'll have you back to your old self in no time, trust me. But she can't do that here, so I need you to come up to the chopper with me, and do it nice and slow so you don't scare anybody, alright?"

Chris kept moving backward and Leon kept moving forward, matching him step for step. When they reached the base of the stairs leading up to the helipad, Chris radioed his team to give them a heads up.

"I've got the B.O.W. and we're coming up. Don't shoot, it's Leon."

"Chris, I know he was your friend, but—" D.C. began.

"He's alright." Chris cut him off. "We're coming up now."

The stairs took a bit of maneuvering on Leon's part with only one good arm, but he valiantly followed Chris all the way up and onto the helipad, where his steps began to slow.

"We're almost there," Chris said encouragingly. "This is the chopper we flew to New York in, remember?"

Judging by the look of distrust in Leon's eyes, he didn't remember. Chris backed up all the way onto the ramp to show Leon it was safe, and Leon seemed to be reassured for a few steps, then he flinched when a blast of wind from the blades caught him in the face.

"It's alright." Chris held out his hand. "It's not going to hurt you."

"Is _he_ going to hurt _us_?" Chris heard Nadia mutter behind him.

"Leon!" Rebecca, wrapped in a blanket, came to stand next to Chris, leaning on him slightly for support as she gave Leon a pleading look. "Let's go!"

Leon looked between Chris and Rebecca, then crossed the distance between them with long strides and all but threw himself into the corner behind the pilot's chair.

"Whoa!" D.C. exclaimed, no doubt feeling the movement on the other side of the divider.

Nadia had reflexively brought her rifle up at the sudden movement, but lowered it when Chris put a hand on the end of the barrel.

"It's okay," he said. "We're good to go."

Leon remained quiet and still in his corner while Chris and Nadia, under Rebecca's instruction, prepared the vaccine for dispersal. Once they got it flowing as D.C. circled over New York, Chris turned his attention back to Leon.

It was hard to tell if the bullet wound was still bleeding since Leon's skin was now a dark reddish-brown, but he was still holding his arm like it hurt, and Chris intended to do something about it if Leon would let him get close enough.

"Chris?" Nadia said warningly when she noticed where he was going.

Chris ignored her in favor of pulling out some gauze and a roll of bandages from the first-aid kit and sitting down on the bench next to Leon, but far away enough that he wouldn't feel trapped.

"Hey," he said quietly. "Can I look at that?" He pointed at the wound on Leon's arm and held up the pad of gauze, hoping that Leon would at least recognize it as not being a weapon.

Leon didn't make an indication either way, so Chris edged closer and closer until he could reach out and put his hand on Leon's arm. He pressed the gauze to the entry wound, freezing when Leon hissed in pain and bared his many—too many—sharp—too sharp—teeth, but Leon didn't pull away or snap at Chris. In fact, he was practically docile as Chris finished bandaging his wound, save for a few grimaces that looked more dangerous than they really were courtesy of the new teeth and other pointy bits he was now sporting on his face.

"Once we get this vaccine distributed, we'll be able to get you to HQ and figure out how to reverse this," Chris said. If they could do it for the millions of people currently below them, they could do it for Leon, right?

Chris looked over at Rebecca for confirmation, but all she could give him in return was a brave yet faltering smile. It wasn't fair of him to ask her anyway while she was still recovering from her own near-infection and before she'd gotten to look at anything in her lab.

"If you can't…" Nadia trailed off, but her question was clear: _could you do it?_

"We will," Chris said firmly. He couldn't believe anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't think too hard about how Leon got infected, it Just Happens.


	2. Chapter 2

"A couple of months? We're going to leave him like this for _months_?" Chris could hardly believe what he was hearing.

"No one's ever seen anything like this before, Chris, we don't even know where to start." Rebecca was sitting in front of a screen displaying all sorts of information about DNA and virus structures that went over his head. She was still pale and her hands shook a little from time to time, but she'd insisted on getting right to work. "He'd already had the vaccine before going to New York so it can't be the A-Virus, and it's not like any of the other viruses we've encountered before. We're going to have to start from scratch; months is as optimistic of a prediction as I can give you."

"I'm going to have to tell Claire. And Sherry. Oh, god." Chris exhaled slowly and ran a hand through his hair. "What are we going to do in the meantime? We can't keep him here."

They were currently at the North American B.S.A.A. headquarters, standing in front of one of the containment cells where Leon was being kept. A bed had been moved into the cell to make it less sparse, and Leon had quickly pulled the mattress off the frame and shredded it to pieces to make some kind of nest in the corner between the bed frame and the back wall. He hadn't moved from that position since settling down, but he was so big now Chris could still see the rise and fall of his back in time with his breaths over the top of the bed.

"I know, and I've already got people working on a more suitable location, but it'll be a week or two until it's ready," Rebecca said. "Do you think you could come and visit him whenever you can? It might help him to see a familiar face."

Chris hadn't been down to Medical yet, but he had a feeling they wouldn't be clearing him for fieldwork for a couple of weeks judging by the aches and pains that were starting to make themselves known now that the adrenaline was wearing off. If he was going to be stuck at his desk, it wouldn't be hard to come down every now and again to check on Leon.

"Yeah, I'll keep him company."

Chris was eventually cleared to rest at home instead of the infirmary, his body one solid mass of scrapes and bruises but nothing more life-threatening than a few broken ribs. As he stood in the shower washing off the blood and grime, he idly wondered if anyone was seeing to Leon's injuries. And he really hoped Leon hadn't thought he'd been abandoned and left to the mercy of the scientists and their experiments. Chris resolved to check in on him first thing in the morning.

-

Rebecca was conversing with some of her fellow scientists when Chris arrived at the lab. None of them looked particularly cheerful.

"Chris!" Rebecca exclaimed when she caught sight of him. "I was just about to call you."

Chris felt his heart sink. He looked past Rebecca into the containment cell, but Leon seemed to be in the same position he was yesterday. Had he even moved? "Is something wrong?"

"We've been trying to get close enough to Leon to examine him, but he won't let us. Can you try? He seemed to be okay with you yesterday."

"Uh, sure." Chris would have thought Leon would be more comfortable with someone like Rebecca who was about as non-threatening as someone brandishing a giant needle could get, but Leon _had_ put up with Chris touching him yesterday, and maybe he'd deign to do it again.

Rebecca insisted on the body armor; apparently, Leon had already sent two agents to Medical, giving one a deep scratch on one arm and throwing the other across the room.

"Hey, Leon," Chris said as the inner door closed behind him.

Leon hadn't so much as twitched at the sound of the door, but when he heard Chris's voice, his head popped up over the bed frame.

"It's Chris." Chris felt less silly about introducing himself when Leon cocked his head in response. "I just came to see how you were doing. Rebecca said you weren't being very nice to her coworkers."

Leon emerged from behind the bed, padding toward Chris on long legs. Chris hadn't noticed yesterday with everything that had been going on, but Leon was tall enough to reach his chest now even on all fours, and would tower over him if he stood up on two legs. He looked like he was putting weight on his injured arm now, which was hopefully a good sign.

"How's the arm feeling?" Chris asked, remaining still as Leon inspected every bit of him, even when one of the limbs on Leon's back tugged experimentally at his bulletproof vest. "That stays until you promise to behave."

Since Leon didn't seem to have any problem touching him, Chris thought he would try to make contact himself, starting with a light touch on Leon's arm, making sure to stay clear of the bandages. When he didn't give any indication of even noticing the touch, Chris reached for the bandage with his other hand.

"I'm just going to have a look at this, alright?"

The gauze was dark with dried blood, but underneath, the only sign that Leon had ever been shot was a light scar Chris would have missed if he hadn't known to look for it. He took a few pictures for Rebecca and the scientists, then raised them on his earpiece.

"He's fine," Chris said. "There's barely a mark left on him. Might be hungry, though," he added when Leon nosed at one of the pockets on his pants. "What do you think he eats?" He had a feeling they couldn't just grab Leon something from the cafeteria.

"We'll figure something out," Rebecca said. "You can come out now."

"I gotta go," Chris told Leon, who looked at him without any recognition in his eyes. "I'll come and see you again later, I promise. And Rebecca will make sure you're looked after when I'm not here. You can trust her."

Chris took a step back toward the door, and Leon moved with him.

"No, you stay here," Chris said, one hand on the door. "Be good for Rebecca, alright?" He opened the door just wide enough for himself to slip through—Leon might still be lean, but he had extra bulk in all sorts of other places now—and tried not to dwell too long on the face Leon had made just before the door shut.

Chris turned the pictures over to the scientists, who were quick to jump on the subject of Leon's accelerated healing rate.

"Imagine what we could do if we could isolate that ability," one of them said excitedly.

Chris was about to tell the man Leon wasn't some new toy to play with, but Rebecca beat him to it.

"Our first priority is helping Leon," she said sharply. "Everything else is secondary."

"Yes, Doctor Chambers." At least the man looked chastened.

"We're going to need to get some blood samples anyway to study the virus," another scientist said. "We can store some of it for further research down the track."

"I hope you're not expecting me to get the samples," Chris said. He'd do it if there was no other choice, of course, but he couldn't spend all his time helping out in the lab, and he would prefer his visits with Leon to not consist solely of sticking him with needles.

"No, we'll sedate him if we need to," Rebecca said. "We can deliver a gas through the vents that'll send him right to sleep. It's good to know he trusts you if we need to get someone in there quickly, though."

"I told him he could trust you too, but I'm not sure if he understands when I speak to him."

"Thanks for trying anyway." Rebecca gave Chris a tired smile; he wondered if she'd gone to the hotel room the B.S.A.A. had given her or if she'd just crashed on one of the couches in the lab.

"I'll come by again in the evening," he said. "You take care of yourself too, you hear me?"

Rebecca nodded. "I will."

-

Chris prepared a script before calling Claire, only to be redirected to her voicemail. He floundered for a second or two after the beep before settling on, "Hey, it's Chris. Call me when you can, alright? I have to tell you something about Leon." He hoped he hadn't sounded too grim.

Sherry answered her phone, but she was currently out of the States on an assignment. She sounded close to tears as Chris tried to tell her as much as he could without giving too many details over the unsecured line.

"He's…stable, as far as we can tell." Chris knew his choice of words was leading Sherry to believe that Leon had been horribly injured in some way, but there was just no euphemism suitable for telling someone their father figure who fought B.O.W.s had been turned into one. "We're looking after him as best we can, but you should come and see him just in case." Even just to be informed of the situation in person if she couldn't stomach the idea of seeing Leon.

"A week," Sherry said. "I can be there in a week. Do you think…"

"He'll still be here. It's not…" Chris struggled to find the right words to say. "It's not what you think. I'm sorry I can't say more."

"Call me if anything changes?" Sherry was an adult now, had been for some time, and was an accomplished agent on top of that, but she sounded so _small_ in that moment that Chris wished he could gather her up in his arms for the hug it sounded like she needed.

"I'll call," he promised. It was the most he could do for her now.

-

When Chris returned to the lab that afternoon, he was pleasantly surprised to see that Leon's room had been brightened up a little, and now looked more like a room and less like a cell. There were blankets strewn about the floor, some of them ripped to pieces while others had been spared, and little chunks of what looked like plastic and rubber scattered throughout the fabric.

"He looked kind of bored so we threw some things in," Rebecca said when she saw Chris. "I don't know if he's doing it for fun or satisfying some kind of prey drive, but at least he seems to be enjoying himself?"

Chris had thought Leon was being facetious when he'd said he never planned too far ahead, but as Chris watched Leon tear into a cardboard box with gusto, he was starting to think Leon had had the right idea; how could they ever have planned for something like this?

"You're recording this, right?" he said. "Claire would never believe me otherwise."

Rebecca swatted him on the arm, right on top of a bruise, and only looked the tiniest bit sorry when Chris winced. "Recordings are for research purposes only. And once this is over, I'll make sure Leon's name isn't attached to any of the data we send to the other facilities."

"That's good." Leon probably wouldn't want more people knowing about this than strictly had to. Chris wasn't even sure if he'd be happy to see Sherry and Claire, but if things should take a turn for the worse, Chris wouldn't be able to live with himself not letting them see Leon one last time.

"Are you going to go say hello?" Rebecca asked after a minute of Chris just standing there looking through the glass wall.

Leon had tired of the cardboard box and was now busying himself with piling everything up on one side of the room, making good use of his tail and the limbs on his back to extend his reach.

"I don't know," Chris said. "I wouldn't want to interrupt."

"He is kind of adorable, isn't he?" Rebecca hid a smile behind her hand. "Go on, I bet he'll be happy to see you. He behaved well enough for me, but I think he likes you better."

Leon whipped his head over his shoulder when he heard the door to the room open, and hunched protectively over the pile he was making.

"Hi Leon, it's Chris again. I'm not here to take your things." Chris held up his hands. "I told you this morning that I'd be back, remember?"

Leon blinked and turned a little so he was facing Chris, but stayed where he was. Chris moved forward to sit on the floor halfway between Leon and the door, leaning against the bed to take the pressure off his broken ribs.

"Rebecca thinks you're adorable." The cameras in here had no audio, so Chris wasn't afraid of her overhearing. "Never thought I'd say this, but I think I agree."

Leon had sunk all the way down onto his pile to listen to Chris, his tail curled around himself so the tip was almost touching his nose.

"We'll laugh about this one day," Chris told him. "Or maybe you won't remember a thing and we'll all pretend it never happened."

Bright blue eyes stared at him, and Chris sighed. He should probably get used to talking to himself for a while.

-

It became part of Chris's routine to check on Leon first thing in the morning when he arrived, and to sit with him and talk for an hour or two in the evenings. Leon never responded to any of Chris's questions or stories, but he was always content to stop what he was doing and listen to Chris whenever he visited.

"What've you got over there?"

Leon shifted to the side to let Chris pass between him and the wall to inspect the small, colorful objects Chris had seen on the other side of the room, replacing the pile of trashed blankets and toys that had been taken away. They were blocks with large raised letters on them, like ones toddlers would be given to play with.

"They're trying to get you to talk, huh?" Chris said, looking at the assortment of letters scattered across the floor. It didn't look like Leon had taken much interest in them other than one block having distinctively non-human teeth marks in it. But he was interested now, if the way he was peering over Chris's shoulder was any indication. Or maybe he wanted to see what Chris would do with them.

Chris picked out four blocks and laid them next to each other to spell LEON. "That's you," he said, looking over his shoulder. "Leon."

Leon came a little closer, crouching next to Chris as he stared at the blocks. The tip of his tail smacked rhythmically against the floor as his eyes narrowed in concentration. After a while, he looked up at Chris, his tail hitting the floor with heavier thumps now.

"Me?" Chris asked, reaching for some more blocks. "I'm Chris." He rearranged another five blocks to spell CHRIS.

Leon inspected this just as closely as he had his own name, then looked back at Chris.

"I'm Chris." Chris pointed at his name then his own chest. "You're Leon." He did the same with the blocks spelling out Leon's name, starting to feel like he was in a Tarzan movie.

But unlike Tarzan, Leon couldn't talk back, and only stared at Chris with wide, unblinking eyes.

"Okay," Chris said, sitting on the floor with his back against the bed. "Let me tell you about my day. I watched the B.S.A.A.'s newest batch of recruits go through training today, and some of them aren't half bad…"

The blocks remained in Leon's room, but he didn't touch them and Chris didn't think any more of them until a few days later, when a meeting ran long and caused Chris to be over an hour late for his daily visit with Leon.

"There you are!" Rebecca said, waiting in the hallway that led to Leon's room. She was clutching a tablet to her chest, and her eyes were alight with excitement. "Leon's been asking for you."

"He—he's talking?" Chris asked.

"Not exactly. Come and look."

Leon was lying directly in front of the glass wall, his tail slowly swishing back and forth behind him. In front of him were five blocks, laid out somewhat haphazardly, but they very clearly spelled CHRIS.

"He started getting restless after about half an hour after you usually come," Rebecca said. "Then fifteen minutes ago, he went for the blocks. It took him a while, but he eventually found what he was looking for."

Warmth blossomed in Chris's chest at the thought of Leon actually looking forward to his daily visits, even if it was just to break the monotony of being cooped up in the tiny room.

"Go on, don't keep him waiting." Rebecca waved Chris toward the door.

Leon was already sitting up by the time Chris opened the interior door, but it wasn't until he saw Chris that his tail started to wag in earnest, smacking noisily against the wall on one side. It was all Chris could do to not laugh at the sight, struck by Leon's uncanny resemblance to a dog whose owner had come finally home; Leon wouldn't thank him for the comparison once he was back to normal.

"Hey, Leon," Chris said, keeping his voice level. "Sorry I'm late."

Leon used his tail to push the blocks to Chris's feet.

"Yeah, I'm here now." Chris tentatively reached out a hand, and Leon leaned forward until his head was resting in Chris's hand. He seemed to sigh a little, then his eyes closed.

Leon was warm. Chris had expected the opposite from the rough, chitinous appearance of his skin, but Leon was radiating warmth under his hand much like a human would.

"Let's get a little more comfortable, and I'll tell you about the meeting that made me late," Chris said, gently nudging Leon over to their usual spot in front of the bed. The nest that Leon had made behind it would be even more comfortable, but Chris didn't want to push things too far by inviting himself in there.

Instead of just sitting next to Chris, however, Leon laid his head down on Chris's lap, looking up at Chris until he put his hand back on Leon's head. Chris gently stroked the hard protrusions that ran down either side of Leon's head, careful to avoid the spines that were relaxed at the moment but still looked wickedly sharp, and could have sworn he heard something like a low growl of satisfaction. Leon was definitely not going to hear about this once he was back to normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leon's POV next chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is almost entirely just Leon's POV of chapters 1 and 2 but further chapters from his POV won't contain as much backtracking, if any.
> 
> Also, I've decided to call the things on his back forelimbs/hindlimbs even though it's not technically correct because there is no technically correct name for them :p

The first thing he knew was pain. It engulfed his entire being, burning his skin and spreading through his bones until all he could do was scream. Once he regained awareness of his body, he tried to move away—away from _what_ he wasn't sure, just as long as he got away—but something held him fast.

He lashed out, feeling the satisfying slice of sharp claws through flesh and the roar of pain from his captor that reverberated through his body. The pressure around him released, allowing him to move freely, but he didn't want to get away anymore. He wanted to take down this _thing_ that thought it could get the better of him.

His body moved as quickly as his mind demanded of it, much quicker than the heavy, lumbering form of his captor could. It was strong, there was no doubt about that, but no sooner did he feel the brush of fingers than he was gone, darting around to his captor's other side. When it left one of its heads unprotected for a fraction of a second, he swooped in, sinking his claws into its eye sockets and reveling in the pained scream it elicited.

Then he was flying, turning midair in an attempt to right himself as he watched his captor go up in flames and the floor fall away beneath it. He couldn't quite get his feet under him before he landed, and hit the ground hard enough to rattle his aching bones.

He took a moment to catch his breath, cataloging his hurts before pushing himself upright with the aid of his forelimbs. He could still fight if the occasion called for it, but now that his captor was no longer a threat, he much preferred the idea of finding somewhere safe to rest and heal until he was back at full strength. As he was about to go off in search of such a place, a loud noise from somewhere in front of him caught his attention.

A large object rose up from the floor, lights flashing on either side of it and an even brighter one shining from the middle. It seemed to be the cause of the wind that was now blowing in his face, but he didn't know what it was or what it was doing.

There was a shout from not far away, and a figure ran into the light waving its arms. He leaned forward to get a better look, then he heard a sharp crack before an equally sharp pain lanced through his upper right arm, and he took off in the opposite direction without a second thought.

The place he was in—how had he even gotten here?—was completely flat, with only one corner he could tuck himself into to hide from the thing with the lights and the wind that had come out of nowhere. He couldn't see it from here, so hopefully it wouldn't be able to see him either.

A part of him argued that he should have charged it instead of run from it, but he hadn't felt the same anger toward it that he had for his captor, and he could feel every bit of the pain now that he wasn't consumed by the need for revenge. He didn't want to fight anymore.

"Leon?"

The word stirred something within him, and he lifted his head to look at the man who was standing in front of him. There was another sound, from someone else, and when he looked for the source, he was surprised to see a small woman lying on the floor not far away. Had she been there the whole time?

"—Leon," the man said again, this time to the woman, and they both looked at him. Was that…his name?

Another less friendly-looking woman came out of the building and briefly exchanged words with the man before she and the first woman disappeared into the building. Nobody was looking at him and he could escape if he wanted to, but he didn't know where to go, and the man who'd spoken to him earlier was now coming closer.

"Leon," the man said, looking directly at him. There were some other words too, but he didn't know what they meant, so he let them wash over him without much thought.

Was he…Leon?

He turned the name over in his head and found that it evoked a sense of familiarity and a flash of memories that went by too quickly for him to recognize any of the faces that appeared. But it was enough to make him certain of one thing: he was Leon.

Curious to see what else this man knew, Leon inched closer to him, making sure not to startle him with any sudden movements or unexpected touches. He didn't smell familiar, but nothing did; Leon felt like he had been thrust into an entirely new world, but no matter how hard he tried to remember, he couldn't picture what it was supposed to look like.

The man tried to lead him into the building the two women had gone into, but there was a bitter taste to the air inside that made a part of him feel uneasy.

"Leon," the man said again, waiting for him to follow.

Leon fixed his eyes on the man, waiting to see if he would take notice of the strangeness in the air, but he only kept talking, his voice low and soothing and calling Leon toward him. When he took a step back, Leon took one forward. The bitterness in the air grew stronger with every step, but Leon didn't feel any worse for it and this man knew who he was, so he kept following.

At the top of the stairs was the thing with the lights and the wind that had hurt his arm badly enough he couldn't put even a little weight on it. The man kept walking toward it though, and he kept talking to Leon, and Leon let the words distract him enough to get a little closer.

When a blast of wind hit him in the face and brought with it the bitter scent from inside the building, now stronger than ever, he froze.

The man had gone inside the thing and the source of the bitterness seemed to be the long containers right next to him. Leon hesitated; did he want to follow this man after all?

Then the woman from before—the first one—appeared next to the man, and she called out Leon's name. So she knew him too.

Leon looked at the two people who might be able to help him navigate this strange new world, then at the containers that every fiber of his being was telling him to stay away from, and eventually, the fear of being left behind won out. He crossed the distance at a run so he wouldn't be tempted to turn back, and aimed for the corner inside furthest from the containers.

It smelled even stranger inside what looked like a big box, earthy scents mixed with a metallic tang and overlaid with that offensive bitterness, but despite that, it still felt safe. Safe enough that Leon found himself drifting off to sleep even as the box lurched and swayed and the people inside with him kept saying words he couldn't understand.

He was almost asleep when the man approached him holding something in his hands. He pointed at Leon before slowly moving closer and closer until he was close enough to put his hand on Leon's arm. It would be easy for Leon to reach out and bite it clean off before the man was even aware he'd moved, but he didn't, not even when the man touched the wound on his arm and made the pain flare up.

The man had something soft in his hand that he tied around the wound on Leon's arm, and though it didn't take the pain away—if anything, the slight pressure made him more aware of it—it felt better, somehow.

-

When Leon opened his eyes, he wasn't in the box anymore but in a bright room. Three of the walls were solid and the fourth had shadows moving behind it that he watched for a short while before growing bored. In the middle of the room was a large rectangle, hard on the bottom and soft on the top. The two parts were easily separated, and the soft part readily fell to pieces under his claws, allowing him to mold it to a shape more comfortable to lie on than a flat rectangle.

Leon briefly wondered where the man had gone, but he was still tired, and this new location was quiet and free from unpleasant smells, and he had something comfortable to lie on. There were worse places to be.

The next time he awoke, he was still in the same room, but there were people in there with him, people he'd never seen before. He didn't want these people, he wanted the man who'd known his name and had taken him away from that place where he'd awoken in pain and with no other knowledge of who he was outside of the burning rage that had gripped him.

When the people came closer, he bared his teeth, hoping they would get the message that they weren't wanted here. They stopped advancing, but it wasn't long before they were trying to get closer again.

Leon rose to his feet and gave them a proper snarl this time, and the two intruders turned tail and fled through a door on the other side of the room. Good riddance.

He didn't have much peace before the door opened again, however. This time, he recognized the small woman, but not the two men who were with her.

"Leon," she said softly amongst a string of nonsensical words.

Leon turned his attention to her, looking at her hands to see if she'd brought him anything. They were empty, so why was she here? All he wanted to do now was sleep, which he'd been doing before he'd been interrupted—twice—but he would forgive being awoken if there was food, which there wasn't.

He tried the snarl again, but it didn't make any of them leave. In fact, the woman tried to come even closer, saying Leon's name a few more times. He climbed to his feet and spread the limbs on his back wide in one last warning to leave him alone.

The woman started to back up this time, but one of the men thought he could move around to Leon's side instead, and Leon was tired of giving warnings that weren't being heeded. He lashed out with his tail, sending the man flying into a wall, and when the other pulled out something and pointed it at Leon, he brought his right forelimb down on the man's arm.

Leon could taste blood in the air, and the hunger that had previously existed only deep in his belly began to rise. But as he took a step toward the man with the bleeding arm, he detected a strange smell in the air right before his body began to feel unusually heavy. When he took another step, he found it hard to move his leg as far, and when he tried to take another, he'd almost sunk entirely to the floor. From there, it was easier to just go back to sleep.

He didn't sleep very deeply, at some point half waking and dragging himself back to the nest he'd made so he would be more comfortable. He dozed lightly enough that he heard the door to the room open again, but given the unrewarding nature of his last few visits, it didn't seem worth paying any attention to until he heard a familiar voice saying his name.

The man had come back. "—Chris," he said as he looked at Leon.

Was that him? Was the man Chris? At any rate, the word had been important enough that it'd stuck to Leon out of all the others that had been thrown at him. Maybe the man knew some more important words.

He hadn't moved from in front of the door, so Leon dragged himself out of his nest with some effort and approached the man instead. He didn't smell like blood and sweat anymore, but his underlying scent was the same, and it was quickly becoming familiar to Leon.

The man touched his arm, the one that had hurt but didn't anymore, and removed the thing he'd tied there. Sleeping had accelerated the healing process for most of Leon's injuries, including his arm, but the rest would need the energy boost that came from eating. Maybe the man had brought him something?

The man hadn't gotten upset when Leon had gently probed him with a forelimb earlier to inspect the strange material on his chest, so Leon got bolder this time, bringing his nose to various parts of the man's clothing. He couldn't smell any food, though.

"—Rebecca—" the man said before he started backing up towards the door. Another name? Food? Was he going to get some food? "—Rebecca—" the man said again before he slipped through the door, closing it before Leon could follow. Maybe it was another important word. Leon filed it away for later.

He waited in front of the door for the man to come back, the hunger in his belly growing all the while. If no one brought him food soon, he was going to have to get some himself.

"Leon," said a woman's voice from out of nowhere.

He turned around, trying to see who had managed to come in without him noticing, but there was no one there.

The woman continued talking, and Leon eventually found something high on one of the walls where the sound was coming from. He tried to climb up to reach it, but the wall was too smooth to get a grip, and too hard for his claws to sink in to. Distracted by this task, he didn't notice the door to the room opening until the smell of food reached him.

A large chunk of raw meat had been left just inside the door. Not a fresh kill, but Leon was hungry enough that he wasn't about to be picky.

His wounds healed quickly after eating, and Leon soon grew tired of being in the room. It had been a welcome sight while he'd still been injured, somewhere safe where no one could get to him, but now he wanted more than what these four walls could provide.

He paced up and down the room, searching for some kind of weakness in the walls he could exploit. The woman's voice filled the room several times, calling his name like she was trying to get his attention, but she didn't come in herself, and Leon had already discovered the device her voice was coming from; there wasn't anything else worth uncovering about it.

He was examining one of the far corners of the room when the door opened. It was the woman, carrying a box in her arms. There were two more people behind her, covered from head to toe in some kind of dark material, but they remained by the door and didn't come closer.

"—Leon," the woman said. "—Rebecca."

There was that word the man had said. Leon tilted his head to one side as he tried to match it to one of his fractured memories.

The woman set down the box in her arms on top of the hard rectangle. "Rebecca," she said again, pointing to herself.

So that was the woman's name? Leon felt like he should remember her, but there was nothing. But the man had said her name, so she must be alright. And she'd brought him something too.

He turned his attention to the box she'd put down, which contained several large sheets of fabric and a strange assortment of other items that he carefully turned over in his claws one by one. Some of them, like a ball that went flying across the room when he released it, felt familiar, but there were others he couldn't discern a purpose for. There was one particular item that let out a piercing squeak when he applied pressure to it, and he ripped it open in an attempt to find out why. In the process of doing so, he discovered the rush of satisfaction that came with feeling the object come apart under his claws. It felt like this was what he was made to do: to tear and rip and rend. To _destroy_.

Leon was so engrossed in his new task that he didn't even notice when Rebecca and the other two people had left, only that he looked up after shredding almost everything Rebecca had brought him, and he was alone in the room. Not that it mattered; she'd tried to keep talking to him, but her words had only come across as a garbled, unintelligible string of sounds, so he'd ignored her.

He gathered up the shredded material to make a second nest on the far side of the room where he would be able to see when the door opened. He didn't expect it to happen while he was still making the nest, but at least he heard it and was able to turn around to see who it was.

The man had come back. "—Leon—Chris—" he said, showing Leon his empty hands.

Maybe the man _was_ Chris. The other two words Leon knew turned out to be names, and he hadn't seen anyone else that ignited a spark of recognition, so it only made sense for the man to be Chris.

Chris came closer, and Leon wondered if Chris would try to touch him again, but Chris only sat down on the floor and started to talk. His voice was pleasant to listen to even if Leon still didn't understand any of the words, and he _was_ rather worn out from tearing apart everything in the box—then the box itself—so he settled down on top of his nest to listen to the soothing cadence of Chris's voice.

-

No matter how Leon rearranged it, he couldn't get the second nest to be as comfortable as the first and eventually gave up on it, dragging the softer pieces over to his first nest. During one of the visits by the faceless people who never tried to speak to him and didn't bother him as long as he stayed clear of them, the abandoned remnants of his second nest were replaced with a large number of small cubes. They didn't smell like food and didn't taste good when he gave one an experimental bite, and their size and material meant he couldn't get a good grip on them to tear them apart. He much preferred the box of things Rebecca had brought him.

Chris seemed to find the cubes interesting, though. They were the first thing he went for when he saw them in Leon's room, and he immediately began searching for specific ones and placing them next to each other.

"Leon," he said when he was done arranging the cubes.

Leon leaned in to get a better look. He'd noticed the raised shapes on the sides of the cubes, but he hadn't known what they were for. He looked up at Chris, hoping to get an explanation.

Chris gathered more cubes with different shapes on them and lined them up. "Chris," he said.

After some pointing at the cubes, Leon, and Chris himself, Leon finally understood that the shapes on the cubes were supposed to represent their names. It seemed to him like a wholly inefficient use of time and effort.

That was, until a few visits later when Chris didn't show up when he usually did.

It was difficult for Leon to judge the passing of time without the sun or the stars to go by, but Chris's visits were at regular enough intervals that Leon just _knew_ when he was about to arrive, was able to sit in front of the door and not have to wait long before Chris came through. This time, Leon seemed to be waiting longer than usual. He waited a little longer, then a little longer still. The door did not open.

Maybe the shadows that moved beyond one of the walls of the room knew where Chris was. Leon pressed his face right up to the wall, and when he couldn't see anything beyond blurry shapes, hit the wall with his tail several times. The shapes moved, but no one came through the door.

Leon's eyes fell on the cubes that were still in the room. He thought back to what Chris had shown him, and tried to remember which shapes had made up Chris's name. There were so many of them, and some of them looked alike but weren't the same. It was rather ridiculous that these shapes were meant to be used for communication.

There were five shapes that made up Chris's name, Leon remembered that much. He hoped he'd chosen the right ones and had put them in the right order when he lined them up in front of the wall. The shadows seemed to come closer. Leon laid down and waited.

He sat up when the heard the sound of a door opening. Not the door in the room, but likely just on the other side of it. As the door to the room began to open, Leon caught wind of Chris's scent. He couldn't contain the shiver of anticipation that ran through his body, and when Chris came into view, Leon faintly registered his tail hitting something. He brought it around to the other side to push the cubes towards Chris.

Chris said something and reached out a hand towards Leon. He'd started to get bolder with his touches after realizing Leon wasn't going to snap at him for it, and Leon was discovering that he didn't mind it so much himself, especially after the last visit when Chris had started stroking Leon's tail almost unconsciously while he talked. Chris seemed to be waiting for Leon to make the move now, and Leon responded by leaning forward and placing his head on Chris's hand.

It felt better than he could have imagined, Chris's hand fitting perfectly around the curve of his cheekbones and easily supporting the weight of his head. Leon leaned in a little more and closed his eyes to block out all other distractions and focus on Chris's touch and how soft his hand felt against Leon's exoskeleton.

Leon could have stayed like that for an eternity, but Chris started to move, and Leon was disgruntled for a moment before realizing that Chris wanted to sit down like he did during every visit, and when he sat down, he created the perfect space on the top of his legs for Leon to lay his head on. Chris not only put his hand back on Leon's head, but also started moving it in long strokes towards Leon's neck. It was possibly the best thing Leon had ever felt, even better than sinking his claws into the thing that had tried to hold him captive. Maybe Chris would do it every visit from now on.

-

A few visits later, something strange happened: the wall with the shadows that moved beyond it began to grow brighter and brighter until Leon could see through it into a different room. There were a few people in the other room including Rebecca and Chris, and a woman with pale hair who had one hand over her mouth and the other pressed to the glass. Her face was wet with water that ran from her eyes, and for some reason, the sight caused a stirring of protectiveness within Leon. Who had upset her? He would rend them from limb to limb until their body was an unrecognizable mass of flesh and bone.

From inside the room, however, all he could do was raise one of his own hands and press it against the glass to match the woman's on the other side. She looked into his eyes and slowly removed the hand from her mouth, also pressing it to the glass. Leon mirrored that too, and she mouthed something at him that he couldn't hear.

They stared at each other for a while before Chris put his hand on the woman's shoulder and looked toward the door to the room. Were they coming in? As Chris steered the woman away and the wall went dark once more, Leon dropped back to all fours and waited in front of the door for it to open.

Chris came through first, and while Leon would normally be glad to see him and would butt Chris's hand with his head for a scratch or nose at it for the sweet-tasting treats Chris had started bringing, this time Leon was focused solely on the woman. She was _important_ , even if Leon couldn't remember her name.

But Chris knew; Chris knew all the important words.

"—Sherry," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

A memory flashed by: someone small, even smaller than Sherry who Leon could already easily pick up and carry away if danger arose.

"Leon," she said with a tremor in her voice, and reached out for him.

He pulled her close, careful to keep his claws well clear, and relaxed his forelimbs so they would be out of the way when she threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. Chris murmured something before backing out of the room, leaving the two of them wrapped in each other's arms.


	4. Chapter 4

Chris was beginning to regret teaching Leon how to spell Sherry's name, because he started to ask for her on a regular basis and would get upset when Chris came in without her in tow. He never lashed out while Chris was in the room, but he didn't seem to pay as much attention when Chris was talking as he had before, and the bed frame had to be removed after Leon managed to rip some of the metal bars off and throw them at the glass wall. He'd even had to be sedated a few times after he'd started scratching at the glass and trying to get his claws in the cracks around the door.

Sherry had promised to come back, but seeing as she'd flown straight to the B.S.A.A. headquarters upon completion of her mission without reporting in with the D.S.O., it would be a few days until she could return.

Claire had finally gotten Chris's voicemail though, and had called to tell him she was on the first flight out of Alice Springs after investigating a possible B.O.W. sighting in the Australian outback. She'd be here in a little over twenty-four hours, and hopefully Leon would give her the same warm reception he'd given Sherry, and be a little cheered by her presence.

She arrived exactly twenty-five hours and not a minute later after she'd called, luggage tags still on her bags, hair half out of the tie holding back her ponytail, and dark circles under her eyes like she'd been up for days.

"You look terrible," Chris said upon seeing her in the lobby.

"Screw you." Claire dropped the duffel bag in her hand so she could return Chris's hug.

It'd been months since they'd last seen each other face to face, and Chris wished it was under better circumstances.

"How is he?" Claire asked when they broke off the hug.

"He's doing well, considering the…situation. Come on, put your bags in my office and I'll take you to see him."

Claire looked like she could use a coffee or a nap, but she insisted on going straight to see Leon even though Chris told her a few hours wouldn't change anything.

"This…is a lab," Claire said when the elevator doors opened; Sherry had been expecting some kind of medical facility too.

"Yeah. What I'm about to tell you is on a strictly need-to-know basis, which is why I couldn't say anything until we got down here. No one knows besides the people who work down here, D.C. and Nadia who were with me when it happened, and Sherry, who's already been to see Leon."

"Spill already, the anticipation is killing me."

"You know about the incident in New York, right?"

"Over a week ago, yeah? The B.S.A.A. was involved in that?"

"Yeah, and we brought in Leon to help. During a fight with…" He'd already gone through this with Sherry, stumbling over his words until she'd told him to just spit it out, and Chris knew that Claire would appreciate the same directness. He took a deep breath. "Leon was infected."

"Oh my god." Claire stared at him, horror plainly evident in her eyes.

"It's not what you're expecting. Come on."

Leon was spread out across his ever-growing blanket pile with the same despondent face he'd been wearing since he realised no amount of demanding or tantrum-throwing was going to make Sherry materialise.

"Holy fuck." Claire stopped walking. "Is…that's Leon?"

"It is."

"You're absolutely sure?"

"Without a doubt."

Claire moved a little closer, but didn't dare to go all the way up to the glass. "Can he see us?"

"He will in a minute." Chris waved at the agent watching over the controls for Leon's room.

The glass wall brightened a little, and Leon raised his head. His gaze immediately fell on Chris, then moved over to Claire. He stared at her for a long moment before pushing himself to his feet and coming over to the wall, raising one hand to place it against the glass. Chris nudged Claire forward, and that was all the prompting she needed to approach the wall and put her hand up to Leon's.

"Leon, Jesus Christ." Claire wasn't quite crying, but her voice was catching in her throat and her eyes had taken on a watery sheen. "Does he recognise me?"

"I think so. He did the same thing to Sherry, but not to any of the other scientists or agents down here. Do you want to go in?"

"Can I?"

"Come on, I bet he'd be glad to see you. He must be sick of seeing my face every day now." Leon hadn't even bothered to look up the last time Chris had gone in to see him.

Leon didn't immediately reach out for Claire like he had with Sherry, but he did sit still and allow Claire to slowly run her hands over his head and arms.

"My god, Chris," she said, her voice breaking even while she smiled encouragingly at Leon as he returned her exploratory touches. "Tell me he can be cured."

"Rebecca and her team are working on it, and they've got the full backing of the the B.S.A.A. and the D.S.O," Chris said. "They'll find a cure."

After Leon was done with his investigation of Claire, Chris suggested that she show Leon how to spell her name with the blocks. They were the only things in his room that hadn't been ripped apart, and were only a little worse for the wear from being thrown around a few times. Everything else that had been given to Leon to entertain him invariably ended up in little pieces.

Once Claire finished lining up the blocks, Leon stared hard at them for a few seconds before reaching for some of his own. SHERRY, he spelled out, deliberately lining up each block in front of Claire before looking at her.

"I'm sorry, Leon, but Sherry's busy." Claire glanced back at Chris.

"She'll come back as soon as she can." Chris repeated what he'd been telling Leon for days. Leon didn't seem to understand any words outside of the occasional name, even when Chris used the blocks to spell words out, but he wasn't sure how else to get through to Leon besides continuing to talk and hoping he eventually picked up a few more words.

"What about a video call?" Claire suggested.

"We tried a phone call once, but it only made him more upset." Chris grimaced at the memory; Leon had immediately recognised Sherry's voice coming out of Chris's phone, but instead of being soothed by it, he'd become more agitated when he couldn't see Sherry anywhere, and even tried to destroy the phone. Chris didn't want to think about what Leon would do if he saw Sherry seemingly trapped behind a screen and was unable to get to her.

"Does Sherry's boss know about Leon?"

"No, and he doesn't need to. Sherry's already scheduled for some time off once she's wrapped up her latest mission, but it's taking some time."

"I'll stay. Until he's back to himself again."

"Are you sure? Rebecca said it could be months before they make any progress."

"He's my friend, Chris. I'm going to stay here and see him through this."

"Alright." Chris nodded. There was no arguing with Claire once she got an idea into her head. "My spare bedroom's probably a bit dusty, but it's yours. You still have a key?"

-

Despite her determination to be there for Leon, Claire was still a civilian, and she couldn't be at the B.S.A.A. headquarters every day without raising a few eyebrows. Chris would smuggle her in after hours almost every other day though, and having her around seemed to cheer Leon up.

It also helped that the new enclosure Rebecca had spoken about was completed a few days after Claire's first visit. Rebecca took Chris to see it first before they transferred Leon over: it was a huge floor-to-ceiling room built in one of the old unused labs, decorated with greenery and large slabs of rock stacked along one side of the room for Leon to climb on. There was even a tiny waterfall and a shallow stream that cut through the center of the room.

"B.O.W.s don't exactly have a natural habitat," Rebecca said, "but since Leon doesn't seem to think much of furniture, I decided this was the way to go instead of getting him a nicely furnished room."

"Yeah, I think he'll like it." Chris tried to ignore the way the enclosure looked a bit like a zoo exhibit and reminded himself that Leon wasn't in the same frame of mind now as he was when he'd been human.

"We've put in light bulbs that simulate natural daylight, and they're on an automatic—" The shrill ringtone of Rebecca's phone interrupted them. "Sorry, I have to take this; I'm trying to get some experimental drugs shipped over from Sweden that I'm hoping will trigger some sort of reaction from the virus. Troy can take you through the enclosure's features." Rebecca waved over one of the scientists who was standing in front of the enclosure checking something off on a tablet.

Troy rattled off the features that had been added in a bored tone: besides the lights that were on timers, there were also individual sunlamps over parts of the rock formation, a mechanised feeding system that would deliver Leon food at the press of a button, cameras everywhere including in the den under the rocks, and the same vents for delivering sedative gas that had been in the containment cell.

"And that door connects to the run there where we can set up some courses." Troy motioned at the large rectangular room next to the enclosure, currently bare.

"Hold up, what courses?"

Troy swiped to a different page on his tablet. "Kind of like obstacle courses. You know, for testing strength, speed, agility, that sort of thing." He turned his tablet around to show Chris the plans.

That did not look like something that would help the scientists find a cure for Leon's condition.

"Who approved this?" Chris demanded.

"Oh, I uh…" Troy cowered under the weight of Chris's stare, and his eyes darted around the room as if looking for an escape route or for Rebecca to come to his rescue, but she was still on the phone.

"Give me that." Chris snatched the tablet out of Troy's hands to look at the plans himself.

"Captain! You can't—that's not—"

"Who approved this?" Chris asked again. He couldn't find a signature on any of the files.

"Chris? What's going on?" Rebecca approached them, her phone call finished.

"Doctor Chambers—"

"Did you know about this?" Chris held the tablet up for Rebecca to see.

"Of course." Rebecca looked confused. "The director suggested it so we would have some training data available if the B.S.A.A. or anyone else ever needs to go up against a B.O.W. like this. And I thought it'd be good exercise for Leon, let him stretch his legs a bit. Is something wrong?"

"'If we ever need to go up against a B.O.W. like this'? Rebecca, it's still _Leon_ in there, not some mindless beast that doesn't know friend from foe. There aren't any other B.O.W.s like this. And if there were, it's not a problem we should be trying to solve with guns."

"We don't know that, Chris. I wish I had better news for you, but all the research we've done so far doesn't tell us whether Leon's condition is going to remain the same or whether it's going to improve or deteriorate. We're all hoping for the best, but you know we need to prepare for the worst too."

"There's no need to do all _this_ just to figure out what he's capable of." On closer inspection, the courses looked a lot like the ones the B.S.A.A. used to train its agents for encounters with B.O.W.s in various types of environments, scaled up in size a little. If someone wanted to test the combat capabilities of an agent-turned-B.O.W., this would be a good way to do it. "Doesn't this look a lot more like a training program to you?" Chris showed Rebecca one of the plans for a course that involved holographic projections of B.O.W.s.

Rebecca took the tablet from Chris and looked over the plans with a growing frown. "Chris, I see where you're coming from," she eventually said, "but I really do think Leon would benefit from the physical and mental exercise this will provide. It's not good for him to stay cooped up in the same place all the time; you've seen how antsy he's getting. I'll make sure he doesn't get hurt, and if he doesn't want to do it, we won't force him, alright?"

Rebecca made a good point about the exercise—it wasn't like they could take Leon for walks to burn off excess energy—and if the order came from the director, there wasn't much Chris could do to override it anyway.

"Fine," he conceded.

Leon, unfortunately, in a show of being so utterly _himself_ , took to the challenge with relish, blowing through the first course without any difficulty and eagerly ripping into the chunk of meat that awaited him at the end. The scientists were excited too, always standing outside the run or in front of the monitors with their tablets, sometimes not even noting anything down, just watching in awe. Chris could have sworn there were more of them around now than he'd ever seen at one time before.

"I'd tell you to quit showing off, but I have a feeling you wouldn't listen even if you could understand me," Chris murmured as he watched Leon push off the wall and twist effortlessly to dodge the swinging log that was released from the ceiling. Leon had had a graceful strength to him as a human, and he hadn't lost any of it as a B.O.W. despite the extra bulk and added limbs. In fact, he seemed to be more at ease than ever with his new body, but Chris didn't know whether to count that as a step forward or back.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be a Leon chapter but it was giving me so much grief I decided to merge the events from it into Chris's chapter instead, and you get a bit of a longer chapter as a result.

He'd been fucking right, damn it. Chris returned from Florida already in a foul mood—just a consultation his _ass_ ; consultations didn't involve getting chased through the swamp by infected alligators that could snap the boat in half with one bite—to find that not only had Leon run and passed the combat trials with flying colors, but he'd actually been cleared to go on a mission. Chris had received a fucking _email_ from Director Walters on his flight back to HQ informing him that he would be Leon's handler for the scheduled mission in a week's time, and that if he felt he wasn't 'up to the task', it would be reassigned to another agent.

"I tried, Chris, I'm sorry," was the first thing Rebecca said when she saw him.

"I know, it's not your fault." Rebecca was just a consultant for the B.S.A.A. after all, and didn't have any real authority here. "How's he been?"

Chris had been getting daily updates from Rebecca as well as from Claire and Sherry each time they visited Leon, but they'd had to keep their messages vague in case they were intercepted. There'd been one message about Leon managing to escape his enclosure that had had Chris distracted for the better part of the day until Rebecca had sent a follow-up message that Leon had been recaptured without serious injury to himself or any of the staff.

"Sherry and Claire have been in to see him as often as they can," Rebecca said, "and I've been trying to keep him company when they can't be here, but he keeps asking for you. Pretty sure he was looking for you when he broke out, too."

"How'd he manage that?" Chris asked.

Rebecca gave him a wry smile. "He pretended to be asleep and made a break for it when we went in to run some tests. We usually sedate him before going in, but he'd blocked off the vents in the den and managed to sneak out while we were setting up equipment."

Chris smiled and shook his head as he looked at Leon spread out across the top of the rock formation, his limbs and tail lax and his chest rising and falling with deep, even breaths, looking for all the world like he was fast asleep.

"Any further progress on a cure?" Chris asked.

"We tried a few things that had promising results in the simulations, but it's been over a day since we administered the last dosage and there doesn't seem to be any change, either on a physical or cellular level."

"I'm sure you'll find something," Chris said, trying to sound more encouraging than disappointed. They were only a few weeks into Rebecca's projected timeline of several months, but the longer this went on, the more Chris worried about Leon losing his sense of self, especially if the B.S.A.A. was going to indulge his more violent tendencies by letting him loose on missions.

"Are you going to go in?" Rebecca's question interrupted Chris's increasingly dispirited thoughts.

Director Walters had wanted Chris to go up to her office for a meeting the moment he got back, but if she'd waited this long already, she could wait a little longer.

Leon jumped off the rocks when he saw Chris—it had to be at least a ten-foot drop, but he stuck the landing like he couldn't even feel the impact—and almost bowled Chris over in his eagerness to greet him.

"I take it this means you missed me, huh?" Chris said with a chuckle, his bad mood dissipating as Leon searched his person for snacks. "Sorry, I was in a rush and forgot to stop at the vending machine for you. Next time, I promise." Chris ran his hand down the side of Leon's head and along his jaw, which never failed to make him growl in satisfaction. "We're going to go on a little trip soon. Did anyone tell you? I haven't gotten the details myself yet."

Chris looked past Leon and saw that a bench had been added along one side of the enclosure in his absence, and scattered on and around it were laminated squares of paper with pictures printed on them. The name of whatever was in the picture was written underneath in large block letters. Sherry and Claire had mentioned something about Leon learning more words, but Chris hadn't expected this.

While Chris was looking through the cards—they seemed to be dominated by people Leon knew and food he liked to eat—Leon pushed one in front of him.

It was a picture of Chris, an older one from a get-together at Claire's place a few years before the China incident. He hadn't had a haircut for some time and his hair, damp with sweat, clung to his forehead and stuck out at odd angles.

"Yeah, that's me," he said to Leon. "You remember the day that picture was taken?" If Chris remembered correctly himself, Claire had taken it shortly after they'd all played a game of football together, insisting that Chris and Leon stood next to each other as the captains of opposing teams. Chris also recognized the picture on Claire's card as part of another where Leon had been in the original, and though Chris couldn't say for sure when Sherry's picture had been taken, he'd bet it was part of a larger one with Leon. "Remember him?" Chris held up the card with Leon's picture. He wasn't quite smiling in it, but he was a sight more cheerful than when Chris had found him in Colorado.

Leon barely spared the card a glance before looking around for another, eventually producing FOOD.

"I'm sorry I didn't bring you anything, alright?" Chris said, reaching out to give Leon another consolatory scratch on the underside of his jaw. "Can we sit and talk for a while?" Chris gathered up some of the cards on the bench so he would have space to sit down, and Leon settled onto the ground next to him, resting his head on Chris's lap. "You ever been to Florida?" Chris asked. "If you thought fighting one alligator in Raccoon City was bad, wait 'til you're out in the middle of the Everglades in a little swamp boat, crossing through alligator-infested waters. And not just any old gators either…"

Someone must have told Walters that Chris was back, because he hadn't even been with Leon for half an hour before Rebecca was apologetically paging him over the enclosure's intercom to tell him that the director was looking for him.

"Duty calls," Chris said, easing himself off the bench with a groan.

Leon curled an arm around Chris's leg and planted a forelimb right in his path.

"I just need to speak with the director, then I'll come right back." Chris tugged his leg out of Leon's grip. "And I'll even bring you some chocolate," he added at the dejected look on Leon's face. "Chocolate," Chris repeated, finding the card and holding it up for Leon to see.

Leon's eyes seemed to brighten, and he followed Chris to the door, intent on going outside with him.

"No, you can't come," Chris said, trying to open the door just wide enough for him to get through. It was harder than the last time he'd had to do this, Leon seemingly less inclined to stay in the enclosure now that he'd managed to get out once. "If you want me to bring you chocolate, you have to let me leave first."

Chris eventually managed to get the inner door shut with Leon firmly on the other side, though Leon was less than happy about it; Chris could hear him growling and scratching at the door. Chris quickly retreated through the outer door.

-

When he reached Director Walters' office, he found her standing in front of the wall that had about a dozen screens mounted on it.

"Ah, Captain," she said when Chris came in, sparing him only the barest glance. "We have the location of Maria Gomez." Walters brought up an image on one of the screens of a woman that looked vaguely familiar to Chris.

"The woman who took Rebecca," he said when he remembered where he'd seen her.

"Yes, she and her family were close friends of Glenn Arias'. We believe the B.O.W. that Arias merged with was her father."

"So she's out for revenge," Chris murmured, mostly to himself. "We're going back to New York, then?"

"No, we've found her holed up in a farmhouse in rural Virginia that we believe she's using as a lab to continue Arias' work on the A-Virus. We could send in a squad to bring her in, but I thought it would make a good first mission to test Agent Kennedy's capabilities." When Chris didn't make any sort of response, she continued, "I understand you don't like this, Captain"—wasn't that an understatement—"but we are both aware that there is a very real possibility Agent Kennedy might never be cured. In that case, as long as his behavior remains manageable, we can't afford to keep him on the sidelines when his presence in the field could turn the tide of the battle. Even the president has agreed with this."

That was what it always came down to, wasn't it? Those who fought B.O.W.s tended to have tragically short careers—Chris couldn't help but think back to the funeral they'd had for Damian just before he'd left for the 'consulting' job—which meant people like Chris and Leon, with seventeen years under their belts and counting, were never afforded a moment of rest. Hell, Chris's ribs still ached from his encounter with Arias, and he'd already been sent out into the field. Why should Leon not being himself—in every sense of the word—stop him from being deployed?

"Are we done here?" Chris asked, resisting the urge to already be out the door.

"Yes, you may go." Walters turned off the screens and sat down behind her desk. "Feel free to request anything you think you might need for this mission from the armory."

The mission was just about as top secret as they got but Chris didn't feel good about hiding it from Claire, so while he tried to think of the best way to break the news to her, he stopped by one of the vending machines in the hallway outside Walters' office to grab a bar of chocolate that he'd promised to bring to Leon.

"Maybe I'll tell her we're running an experiment that might run past our usual hours." Chris floated the idea by Leon as Leon contentedly chomped down on the chocolate bar, then winced at the thought of Claire catching him in a lie. "I'm just going to have to find the right time to break the news to her. At least you won't yell at me, right?" He scratched Leon right between the shoulder blades, now mostly immune to the way the limbs that sprouted from Leon's back curled and stretched in response. "Hope you still won't when you're back to normal."

Sherry found out about the mission through her D.S.O sources and shared the news with Claire, and the two of them were waiting for Chris in his apartment when he got back from work the next day. Claire was at the counter while Sherry rummaged through the fridge, and it felt so domestic and familiar that it made Chris regret the only reason they were all back together again was because something had happened to Leon.

"We have to get him out of there," Claire said, chopping up an onion so violently Chris was afraid she'd cut some of her fingers off and not even notice.

But he couldn't deny that he'd considered the idea too. "And what, put him up on the couch?" Chris nudged Claire out of the way and took over the onions. "You've seen how strong he is, haven't you? We have a responsibility to the people we're trying to protect to keep him contained. We have a responsibility to _Leon_. Imagine if he killed an innocent civilian because we let him out."

"He's being let out for this mission," Claire pointed out. She moved on to attacking carrots with a peeler, which was only marginally safer than a knife considering the mood she was in.

"We're going to an isolated farmhouse that's going to be surrounded by B.S.A.A. troops," Chris said. "If anything gets out of hand, they'll—"

"Kill him," Claire finished.

Chris grimaced. "They'll most likely shoot to kill, yes." It was what they'd been trained to do, and Chris wouldn't be able to order them to hold their fire without giving anything away. "I don't have any authority to override this, Claire. It's going ahead with or without me, and at least if I'm there, I can keep an eye on him." He gave Sherry a pleading look, asking her to back him up on this.

"Chris is right," Sherry said with a sigh. "The president's given the green light on this mission, and nothing can supersede that, especially while we're on American soil."

"I can't believe we've been reduced to this," Claire said despairingly. "'Stop bioterrorism at any cost', huh?"

There were some days Chris thought Claire had had the right idea in giving up the endless fight to focus on how to give aid directly to those affected instead, but logically, he knew that there wouldn't _be_ any pieces left to pick up if there weren't people like him and Leon on the front lines, and on those days, that knowledge was all that kept him going.

"I'll look out for him," Chris said, not just to Claire but to Sherry too, who looked like she could use the reassurance even though she wasn't saying much. "I promise."

"We're all counting on you, Chris," Claire said. "Don't you dare come home without him."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

-

Leon was not keen on going back into the Osprey, the sight of it likely bringing back bad memories of the fight with Arias. To the amusement of D.C. and Nadia, Chris was able to tempt Leon on board using the packet of gummy bears he'd stashed into one of his vest pockets at the last minute as a backup method of getting Leon to listen to him. Leon had been doing well with learning hand signals and simple commands over the last week, but just like his human self, he could get obstinate and refuse to listen at times. Unlike his human self, he was easily bribed with something sweet, and gummy bears were less likely to melt and leave a mess than chocolate.

"Not a word," Chris growled once he got Leon inside and the doors closed. "And absolutely no pictures." Claire was guilty of taking some, but Chris could trust her not to share them with anyone else, save maybe Leon once he was back to normal.

"I wasn't even thinking of it," Nadia said in a tone of voice that told Chris she had definitely been thinking of it.

The farmhouse was set back from the fields, close to the forest that bordered the property, giving Chris and Leon plenty of cover on their approach. D.C. would keep the Osprey close by with Nadia providing air support if they needed it, but other than that, they were alone.

There was a tracking bracelet around Leon's ankle—one of the scientists had had the gall to suggest that a collar would be harder to accidentally remove, but Chris had glared at him so hard he'd choked on the rest of his sentence—in case he decided to take off on his own, but for now he seemed content to follow Chris, even if he did stop every few yards to touch or smell something.

"Leon!" Chris hissed in exasperation when he once again turned around to find that Leon had fallen behind. He gave Leon the hand signal for _follow_ , and Leon reluctantly pulled himself away from the bird nest he was about to climb up to. "There'll be more fun things to look at once we get to the house," Chris said, only feeling the slightest bit ridiculous; he'd gotten pretty used to saying all sorts of things to Leon without worrying about being mocked for what came out of his mouth.

When the house came into view past the tree trunks, Chris signaled for Leon to stop so he could scout the area with the binoculars he'd brought. Leon complied, but the spines on his head were beginning to rise, the limbs on his back unfurling, and his gaze was no longer curious but piercingly sharp as he stared straight at the house.

"See something, do you?" Chris murmured as he brought the binoculars up to his eyes. He rested his other hand on Leon's arm, more to remind him to hold his position and to make sure he was still there than out of any hope of actually holding him back.

Chris's sweep of the farmhouse with the binoculars didn't turn up anything out of the ordinary, not even cameras or motion detectors, but Leon's arm under his hand was tense with muscles coiled in anticipation to strike. That and the intel the B.S.A.A. had acquired was enough to convince Chris something was going on in that house, but not enough to let Leon take the lead yet.

_Follow_ , he told Leon.

Leon padded along behind Chris, not making much more noise—less, if anything—despite his larger size and extra weight. He was so close that Chris could hear the quiet, unsettled rumble deep in his chest that hadn't quite worked its way up to being a growl yet.

"Easy," Chris murmured as they emerged from the forest and Leon surged forward a little like he wanted to rush ahead. "We'll go in through the back door." _Follow_ , Chris reminded Leon, then gestured at the door in question.

There were three steps leading up to the back porch, and Chris had barely gotten his foot on the first step when there was a flurry of movement from the side of the house. Two dogs streaked around the corner, barking furiously and easily dodging the bullets Chris sent their way. At least the sight of the infected dogs confirmed that he and Leon weren't trespassing on some innocent farmer's property.

The dogs were moving so quickly that Chris couldn't get a lock on them, but Leon didn't have the same problem. He pushed Chris out of the way of one with a hindlimb, blocked off the dog's escape route with his forelimb, then sunk his claws into the dog's neck and ripped it open. When the second dog came at him from the other side, Leon spun around and threw the dog into the side of the house with his tail. Chris finished it off with two shots to the head.

"Whoever's in the house definitely knows we're here now," he said as he loaded a fresh magazine into his rifle. "Let's move."

Chris gave Leon the go-ahead to break down the door. There was another infected dog inside that Leon dispatched with frightening efficiency, then he took off further into the house without waiting for Chris. Chris abandoned all stealth and ran after him; Leon seemed to have an affinity for detecting the infected so Chris trusted him to take care of any that were on the way, and Chris had to make sure Leon didn't kill Maria Gomez before she could be taken in.

It was easy to follow the trail of destruction Leon left in his wake. There were the bodies of more infected animals—it looked like Maria had been experimenting on the local wildlife—furniture that had been upturned or destroyed as collateral damage, and a hidden passageway behind a fallen bookshelf that looked like it led deep underground.

"I'm about to go into some kind of basement," Chris told D.C. "Looks like it goes pretty far down, so we might lose radio contact."

"Copy that."

The stairs were steep and uneven, like whoever had cut them had been in a hurry. Chris was about halfway down when he heard fighting from further below which sounded like it was taking place between Leon and something much bigger than a dog.

When Chris reached the bottom of the stairs and rounded the corner, he did not expect to see Leon facing off against what looked like an infected bear. It was so big it barely had any room to swing its paws in the corridor, but every swipe it made at Leon was powerful enough to take chunks out of the wall and make the ceiling shake. Leon, faster and with a longer reach, would dart forward to lure the bear into attacking, then retreat before it could hit him, and counterattack.

"Like what you see?" a woman called out from the doorway behind the bear.

"Maria Gomez!" Chris aimed his rifle at her though they both knew he didn't have a clear shot past Leon. "Captain Chris Redfield, B.S.A.A."

"I know who you are, Captain Redfield," she said with a smirk. "But I have to say, I'm surprised to see you fighting alongside the very thing the B.S.A.A. has sworn to eradicate."

"You know who he is, don't you?"

Maria's voice was far too smug for her not to. "I see you're making good use of him. Let's call him a free sample. Would the B.S.A.A. be interested in growing their ranks of such…agents? I'll wait for you to contact your superiors."

"I have my orders, and they're to bring you in."

"I don't think so." Maria tossed something in the air toward Chris.

"Leon!" he shouted before retreating to the stairwell.

Leon didn't follow, and Chris's heart hammered in his chest as he waited to hear the bang of a grenade. Instead, he barely caught a hiss beneath the sounds of continued fighting, then a pungent smell drifted over. Chris held his breath as he withdrew further up the stairs, the New York Incident still fresh in his mind. He hoped that whatever gas Maria had just released, it wouldn't adversely affect Leon too much, because there was no way Chris was going to be able to get him out of the way.

Chris forced himself to wait instead of rushing back down, taking shallow breaths to gauge whether the gas had dissipated enough. He didn't know how much would be safe to inhale—if any—but he couldn't stay up here forever and risk losing both Leon and Maria.

He took the steps cautiously at first, then quicker when the walls rumbled and clods of earth fell from the ceiling. It sounded like the fight was still going strong, but if Leon and the bear kept this up for much longer, the place could come crashing down on them.

Leon had managed to push the bear backward, leaving clear the doorway that Maria had been standing in. She was still inside the room when Chris entered, typing frantically on a keyboard, and didn't seem to notice him entering. Around her were cupboards stocked full of vials and syringes containing who knew what.

"Put your hands behind your head," Chris said, his rifle trained on Maria.

Maria's hands stilled, but she didn't raise them. From somewhere out in the corridor came a horrific, bone-chilling scream. Chris had never heard Leon make such a sound, but somehow, he just _knew_.

"Not going to help him?" Maria asked.

Chris grit his teeth and tightened his grip on his rifle even as his feet wanted to turn around. His mission here was to take in Maria, and he had to trust that Leon could take care of himself. "Hands behind your head. Now."

Maria complied this time, and Chris cuffed her hands behind her back with the specialty cuffs he'd requisitioned for the mission. He still wasn't sure if they would be enough to hold Maria, so he clamped one hand around her upper arm and traded his rifle for a pistol that he could use more effectively at close range.

As he was leading her out of the room, a series of roars and enraged screams reverberated down the corridor, accompanied by more shaking of the walls and ceiling. Chris hauled Maria to the door and nearly dropped his pistol at the sight of Leon drenched in blood, limping away from the huge unmoving form of the bear sprawled across the ground, blocking off the corridor to the right. Its throat had been torn so deeply it'd almost been decapitated, but it still didn't seem like enough blood to explain Leon's current state.

"Leon," Chris said in a low voice, taking a step toward him.

Leon snarled, his teeth red with blood and his eyes wide and feral. He was shielding his right side from Chris, and seemed torn between attacking or running.

"Leon, it's Chris." Chris couldn't see any recognition in Leon's eyes, just pain and fury, and he hoped they hadn't just lost Leon for good.

Leon took several heaving breaths before bolting, hurtling down the corridor to the left and leaving a trail of bloody, uneven footprints behind.

"Leon!" Chris yelled, knowing he wouldn't be able to catch up, especially not with Maria in tow.

"How good is his healing factor?" she asked, picking up on Chris's dilemma and delighting in it. "Good enough to last until you turn me over to your friends and come back down to look for him?"

There was nothing more Chris wanted to do than to tie Maria up somewhere and go after Leon, but from the tone of her voice, that was exactly what she was hoping for too. Chris couldn't afford to let her go now, not when she might know something that could help change Leon back. Chris had to take comfort in the fact that Leon was still mobile enough to outrun him, and that Leon had always been a fighter, a survivor.

_Hang on, Leon_ , Chris thought with all his might. _I'm coming back for you_.

"Move," he said to Maria.


End file.
